“Well, I hated to bother you gals so soon after Helena’s death. Especially about something pretty trivial. A friend of mine-his name is Meyer-can’t seem to get that custom motor sailer you people used to have out of his mind. The Likely Lady. She must be six years old now or a little more. He’s been haunting the shipyards and yacht brokers for a long time, looking for something like her, but he can’t turn anything up. He wants to try to track her down and see if whoever owns her now will sell. As a matter of fact, I’d already promised him I’d write to Helena when… her letter came. I made a phone call and found out she had… was gone. I told Meyer this was no tune to bother you or Maureen. But then I wondered if… well, there was anything at all I could do. I guess that because I was on the scene the last time, I’m kind of a self-appointed uncle.”
Her smile was strained. “Don’t get me started again. Lately I just can’t stand people being nice to me.” She put her glass down and went over and stared at herself in the mirrored door of the bathroom, at close range. After a few moments she turned away. “It works. It always has worked. When we were little and couldn’t stop crying, Mom would make us go and stand and try to watch ourselves cry. You end up making faces at yourself and laughing… if you’re a little kid.” She was frowning as she came back to her chair and her drink. “You know, I just can’t remember the name of the man who bought the Lady. I think he was from Punta Gorda, or maybe Naples. But I know how I could find out.”
“How?”
“Go down and open up the house at Casey Key and look in Mom’s desk. I have to do that anyway, the lawyers say. She was very tidy about business things. File folders and carbon copies and all that kind of thing. It will all be in the folder for that year, the year she sold it. It was such a great boat. I hope your friend finds her and can buy her. Daddy said she was forgiving. He said you could do some absolutely damfool thing and the Lady would forgive you and take care of you. If you could give me your address, I could mail you the name and address of the man who bought her.”
“Do you plan to go down there soon?”
“We talked about going down Saturday morning and driving back Sunday afternoon. It ought to give us enough time. But it depends on… how Maurie is.”
“Is she physically ill?”
“In addition to being mentally ill? Is that what you mean?”
“Why the indignation? Trying to knock yourself off isn’t exactly normal behavior.”
“I get… too defensive about her, maybe.”
“Just what is wrong with her?”
“It depends on who you ask. We’ve gotten more answers than we can use. And more solutions. Manic depressive. Schizophrenia. Korsakov’s Syndrome. Virus infection of a part of the brain. Alcoholism. Name it, and somebody has said she has it.”
“Korsa-who?”
“Korsakov. Her memory gets all screwed up. She can remember everything prior to this past year, but the past year is a jumble, with parts missing. I think sometimes she uses it as a… convenience. She can really be terribly sly. As if we were against her or something. And she does manage to get terribly stinking drunk, and she does manage to sneak away from us, no matter how careful we both are. We put her in a rest home for two weeks, but she was so upset by it, so confused and baffled by it all, we just couldn’t stand it. We had to bring her home. She was like a little kid, she was so pleased to be home. Oh, she’s not buggy-acting at all. She’s sweet and dear and a lovely person, really. But something has just… broken, and nobody knows what it is yet. If I hadn’t told you all this, you could come to the house and never know anything was wrong, really.”